It is a fact that not all persons are born with beautifully straight teeth. Nevertheless, for both health and beauty reasons, it is desirable that a person have a dental structure that is characterized by properly aligned (i.e. straight) teeth. Consequently, much effort is endured by many people to achieve this goal.
Heretofore, the use of braces has been widely accepted as a means for straightening teeth. Though effective for this purpose, braces necessitate many repeat visits to the dentist's office. Specifically, this happens because the dentist needs to gradually tighten the braces, rather than enforce a complete change in one sitting. That could be really painful. More recently, however, computer-generated systems have been developed that are intended to be used without requiring repeat visits to the dentist's office. Typically, these systems will include a series of appliances that are to be used sequentially, in a progression, to thereby incrementally and gradually align the teeth as desired. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,975,893, which issued to Chishti et al. for an invention entitled “Method and System for Incrementally Moving Teeth” discloses such a computer-generated system. Because they are computer-generated, however, such systems do not have the flexibility to selectively align individual teeth in a dental structure. More particularly, this cannot be done in a way that will remedy the specific dental alignment needs of a particular patient.
In light of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a mechanical device for reconfiguring a model dental structure, where each individual tooth in the dental structure can be selectively realigned, individually or collectively with other teeth in the structure. Another object of the present invention is to provide a system for reconfiguring a model dental structure that creates a series of teeth straightening appliances that are customized to incrementally remedy the specific dental alignment needs of a particular patient. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a mechanical device for reconfiguring a model dental structure that is easy to use, relatively simple to manufacture and commercially cost effective.